CAC offering Chinese language course this fall at Signal Peak Campus

PINAL COUNTY, Ariz. – Central Arizona College will offer a new foreign language course entitled Chinese for Non-Native Speakers beginning with the upcoming fall semester.

The course will be taught by Darlene Vuicich, a veteran of nearly 30 years in the instruction of the Chinese language.

The class will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:30-6 p.m. at CAC’s Signal Peak Campus located between the cities of Coolidge and Casa Grande and will provide students with the opportunity to learn the basic sounds, tones, characters and Romanization (the use of the Latin alphabet) of the Chinese language.

From the beginning of the course, each student will be given a Chinese name by the instructor and, by the conclusion of the course, it is anticipated that students will be able to give a one-minute speech in Chinese. Cultural information will be given to students throughout the course.

This class will be useful for students interested in Chinese culture and language as well as area businesses that might have economic ties to China.

A native of Idaho, Vuicich earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona before receiving a master’s degree in Chinese from Stanford University.

During the course of her studies, Vuicich spent an entire year at Stanford’s branch location in Taiwan before immersing herself for two more summers in Taiwan and an additional two summers in Beijing.

Before leaving the teaching profession in 1996, Vuicich taught Chinese at the high school level for 28 years in both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

For more information about the course, students should contact John Paddison, director of international studies, by e-mail at john.paddison@centralaz.edu.